


A Crown of Laurel & Ivy

by wraithwitch



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Canon - TV, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 00:16:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4413539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wraithwitch/pseuds/wraithwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Answering the question of what happened when Strange was dying in the library at Hurtfew when the Black Tower left England. </p>
<p>Originally written for the JS&MN kink meme, now newly edited and with the addition (gods help me) of footnotes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tower

**Author's Note:**

> HTML makes my dyslexic brain bleed, so the footnotes are not clicky-linked. I advise just reading them at the end anyway =P

* * *

“I cannot die!” It was not arrogance: Strange’s arrogance had been razed from him that night - it was desperation.

“We - we are but men,” Norrell counselled philosophically, not understanding that Strange courted life and time not so much for his own sake but his wife’s.

There was a final cruel wrench, and with it a further twist of the curse that still plagued them. Norrell felt its talons in his soul like a book might feel a hand clawing at its pages and tearing them out.

Strange fell and did not seem able to get up. Mr Norrell hurried to him. “Mr Strange!”

“I’ve been under this spell for too long,” he rasped, his usual sunny imperiousness ground from his voice entirely.

“Mr Strange…” It was not sentimentality that caused Norrell to hold his former pupil as he did. It was the same mixture of need and avarice that had caused him to clasp his books to his breast in just such a way. Magic was his life, and he could not bear to lose any more of it than he already had. “Jonathan…” Norrell regarded him with a look that had only previously been bestowed upon his most esteemed library texts. “Jonathan - my friend,” he uttered.

The other magician was shivering; Strange’s breathing was laboured and his eyes could not attend to their business but instead stared, raw, open and pained like something peeled.

“I will not leave you Jonathan. Do not be afraid.” Mr Norrell’s heart had since boyhood been a very small thing. He had kept company with books, which were far easier to understand than people. But once or twice in his life his heart had given a mighty beat and overflowed the dry bounds that intellect and scholarship had set upon it - as it did so now. “Look at me.” He took hold of Strange’s face, tilting it so those eyes skinned raw by pain and horror might glance upon a more familiar sight. “See? I am not afraid.” There was a crack in his voice, but for once it was not fear. 

The two magicians - although neither realised it - had both simultaneously failed and fulfilled the prophecy set down by the Raven King, thereby completing his spell. As Vinculus had recounted, “The name of one shall be fearfulness - the other - arrogance.” Within that night, Strange had admitted his hubris and accepted his fate, whilst Norrell had discarded his fear and discovered wonder.

Hurtfew seemed to be collapsing around them - the stones screamed and the wood groaned. “I am not afraid,” Norrell repeated, hoping that his instruction might teach his former pupil also. Strange’s gaze had slipped and now beheld the aether once more, red rimmed and not entirely sane - although one might charitably suppose that Strange’s earlier experimentation with his tincture in Venice left him more open to see the precise and peculiar workings of spells when other magicians could not. It must have been a harrowing sight; his breathing faltered, hitching somewhere within his ribs as if it could no longer come and go with the ease it once had. His back arched and he went rigid.

Mr Norrell had never seen anyone die, yet he had an unpleasant notion that he might be about to.

For the third time in its long history - and thrice in the span of a single day - the library at Hurtfew experienced rain. For some moments Mr Norrell blinked his little eyes in surprise and he wondered if somehow this was his rain from before. Had he dispelled it incorrectly? Had it perhaps not disappeared as it ought but simply wandered off? 

It was because of his scholarly ways that his thoughts ran thus. A person such as you or I would think sensibly first of quitting the rain, but Gilbert Norrell’s mind was not set that way. So it was that he sat, with Strange still lain in his arms, blinking beneath the confines of his periwig as the rain poured down. He frowned at the deluge, and thought about it as an abstract thing for some time. It was only when he chanced to look down and saw that Strange’s eyes were closed that it finally occurred to him to seek shelter. There was a table in the library, a dark sturdy thing - very plain and heavy. Mr Norrell had never thought it good for much since his tastes did not run to feasting (the function it had so obviously been built for) but now he thought it an excellent thing as it would shelter them both admirably. Dragging Strange from the steps where they had been resting across to and under the table was far more work than Norrell had ever imagined was possible. Had he been more naturally empathic, he might have wondered at how the footmen made all this fetch and carry nonsense seem so easy. As it was, he only had thoughts for the rain.

It was in truth a very pernicious sort of rain - Norrell would swear that it fell upon him with fervour and upon Strange even worse. It behaved as no rain ought, finding its way in and under the table with a tenacity that was vexing in the extreme.

Eventually the rain in its persistence ceased to seem malicious, instead it brought a memory to him from when he had been very young and his nurse had grasped his small hands and cleaned them with a damp cloth whilst he fidgeted - which was nothing of course to how he squirmed when she had cleaned his face…

What was it that possessed him to think the rain had any smattering of personality - that it might have whims or a purpose? The annoyance that he’d started to build against himself in his thoughts ceased abruptly, as if it was a coat he had dropped. Of course the rain had a purpose - it was magic, and what was magic if not purpose? And of course the rain had a personality of sorts, or an idiom at least, for it was cast by a magician and no magician could cast a spell that didn’t show in its style or working some glimmer of that magician’s own personality. Norrell concentrated on the rain; his eyes closed and his lips moved as he recited Doncaster’s _Revelation._ (1) 

He had never used the magic in that way before - he had never needed to - and so he wasn’t entirely certain what its results would be. He assumed when he opened his eyes he would catch a glimpse of the magician responsible through the liquid mirror of their own rain spell. Nothing of the sort happened. Indeed, nothing happened for several long moments and Norrell wondered for not the first time whether the curse was interfering with his magic. 

He was about to attempt the spell again, when he had the oddest and most uncomfortable notion that the rain was looking at him. How raindrops might have a dark and sardonic air he didn’t know, but he felt certain these had. There was something in their turn that reminded him of Childermass’s crooked, knowing smile, but really, equating the rain to Childermass was like equating a ferret to a wolf - fur and teeth were one thing but scope and scale quite another. 

This spell was like Childermass only in the way that one single barb of a feather might be said to be like the whole bird it came from… That line of thinking took Norrell to the dark feathers that lined the floor of the library still and the ravens his books had turned into. It was not a comforting place to be lead.

He was still musing in this way when Strange made a sound, an odd rattling within his throat that Norrell did not care for at all. None the less, it suggested to him quite stridently that he might creep out from under the table now the rain was easing, and might stoke the fire to better flames or perform some other small and useful task.

Norrell was not the sort of man to trouble himself over the names of his servants. It was not done through meanness, nor had it ever been done to a purpose, but Norrell had never known the names of more than five servants in his lifetime, despite the numbers who had served him. 

Childermass he knew, and he told himself that was because the man had been in his employ for more years than could be easily counted. This was true, but it was not the reason Childermass’s name was one Norrell remembered - had remembered since the moment they were introduced. It was because Childermass had a particular quality to him. 

Some people have an excess of wit or beauty or a skill that runs within some obscure quadrant of life, and for this they are remarkable. Childermass had his own quality. It was not memorability nor dependability exactly - indeed, having been many things in his life and several of them rather dubious and unlawful, Childermass might have been alarmed to find himself described as ‘memorable’ when he chose so often to make himself nothing more than a shadow… (2)

But bookish Gilbert Norrell, with his small blue eyes and slightly over-large periwig, was not like other men and did not see the world as other men did. The world saw Childermass as fleeting, untrustworthy, and just the respectable side of menacing. He was quite at ease in the world, but he had the gift of making the world feel very uncomfortable in his presence if he so chose. 

Mr Norrell did not see a single sliver of that. He saw cleverness and usefulness mixed with a lack of ambition and a surprising _sarcastic_ sort of loyalty. In short, from the very first, he’d seen his perfect man of business. But Childermass was not here, and whilst some part of him still wished to, Norrell told himself sternly that he would not bellow for Childermass in desperation as he had when that filthy street magician had accosted him, or when Strange had first arrived at Hurtfew and broken his labyrinth… 

He looked towards the other man: his former pupil, turned enemy and then friend was the reason he was thinking on servants in the first place. They had all quit Hurtfew when the black tower came. There was no one he could call to aid him; not Childermass, who would certainly have a shrewd idea of the best course of action to take. Not Davey the footman, who might carry Strange over his shoulder and lay him in one of the thirteen bedrooms the abbey possessed. Not the maid - H… Honour? Henrietta? Whatever her name was, she was to Mr Norrell the maid who brought him his tea. (3)

Poor Mr Norrell! Rain soaked and quite at a loss as to what to do about his equally rain soaked former pupil who still lay half under the table. The magician was wise enough to know that Strange was in a bad way - the curse had affected him most cruelly - and as such, those creature comforts we all desire when we are at our lowest ebb would be sure to rally him round. 

Mr Norrell had all his life those same comforts provided for him by a small army of staff who were used to his ways, his wants, his moods. It wasn’t that he resented providing succour for Mr Strange, it was that he didn’t exactly know where to start. 

 

* * *

 

1: Doncaster’s _Revelation_ is an extremely useful spell and when correctly framed can be employed to show all manner of different things. Strange used it himself as the first part of the triumvirate of charms to reach the King’s Roads.

2: Before he became this age’s Reader of the King’s Letters and before he had been in Norrell’s employ, there is a gap of some five years of Childermass’s life about which magical scholars know nothing. Prior to that however, he was recorded to be a sailor in the navy and prior to that in his earliest youth, a pickpocket who escaped a branding only because he was pressganged into His Majesty’s Navy.

3: The three housemaids at Hurtfew were Dido, Lucy and Hannah, and Childermass was known to be fond of them and had shown all three of them many small kindnesses. His favourite was Hannah. 


	2. The Star

He supposed blankets might be a place to begin as they were less complicated than tea and (unlike dry logs for the fire) he knew where they might be found. Mr Norrell did not, as his housekeeper might have wished, go to the linen cupboard because he had no notion where the linens were housed. He simply visited three of Hurtfew’s thirteen bedrooms and dragged all the linens and blankets within back with him to the library, not attending as he ought to the fact they trailed though several puddles that the rain had so thoughtlessly left.

Having achieved this task - one quite outside his usual remit - Norrell was feeling pleased with himself and took to talking as if Strange could hear him. “I had never thought, how vast a house might be when it is empty of servants or books. And this darkness - it encroaches so! I actually performed Atherton’s _Lumin_ \- a thing I’ve never before done sir! I had always considered it a very frivolous spell, scarcely respectable at all - in fact it seemed the very sort of magic that a rogue might employ were they to get their hands upon it. Yet it was so bothersome, minding the bed-sheets and the candle all at once, and the flame was so small…” Mr Norrell’s voice faded. The learned gentleman was not one of those enlightened and poetic sorts who was overly much acquainted with his own feelings. He had lived his life in, through and around books; to realise he was afraid not of the dark but that the dark might fancifully signify Jonathan Strange’s demise was not a footnote in his personal history he cared for. And so he had, quite against his usual character, performed the charm _Lumin._ Mr Norrell was still illuminated as he spoke, but his mind had moved to other things and so no longer noticed it, and Mr Strange was in no state to remark upon it. 

Atherton does not describe the light produced, which is a shame both for scholars and those of a more artistic bent. The light formed is unique to each individual and is also in perfect proportion to their fear and need. (1)

Mr Norrell’s personal manifestation of _Lumin_ was a pale and steady blue that hung about his shoulders like a cloak and drifted in flickering streams before him like light reflecting off a river. The cloak of light had been very vast when he had been affrighted upstairs, and had shrunk a little as he returned to the guttering candles and the embers of the fire in the grate in the library. He’d set one pile of blankets upon a chair, fussily trying to fold them and swiftly growing cross that there was no servant to do the task for him: in that moment it scarcely seemed he had cast the spell at all. But then he remembered why he had troubled himself to fetch the blankets; his eyes darted to the shadows beneath the table and the long thin darker shadow that still lay there. The spell at his back pulsed brighter and the river-y tendrils of light flowed forward to bat the shadows away.

It was in Mr Norrell’s nature to be peevish and to scold the world for causing a slight against him even when there were others more gravely hurt than he. But standing staunchly against his peevishness, was the memory of sharp and panicked pain when he thought Mr Strange might be dead, and the unlikely slivers of comradery and tenderness that had been pulled from him at that time. In quite a similar way, whilst he had meant to remonstrate with Strange for still lying in that disconcerting manner - half under the table and half out, half in a puddle and half not and seemingly wholly neglectful of his health or person - the typical scolding was not what left his lips.

“I - I have brought you blankets,” he told Strange, and then waited in expectation of a raising of the head, an ironical half-smile and the low voicing of the phrase, ‘Indeed sir?’ or some similar thing that would in Strange’s way show his amusement at his tutor stooping to fetch and carry such mundane items. 

But Strange obstinately remained pale and still in exactly the attitude Norrell had left him in when it occurred to him to fetch blankets in the first place. 

The light at his shoulders flared brighter for an instant, but, as it was meant to do, it lent a little comfort and so settled down to a steadier and more calming radiance. Mr Norrell found himself talking again as he struggled to lift or sit Strange up, and when that proved impossible he had to settle for dragging him the short distance to the hearth. This time, Norrell wasn’t talking to his former pupil; he found in fact he seemed to be talking to the soft-flickering reflected river-light that still hung solicitously about him. 

“He is so tall,” he huffed to the light. “Did it not occur to him what an inconvenience this might prove to other people? Of course not - he is flighty - he does not think on such things. He never thinks...” That last word was said with much feeling as he let go of Strange’s arms, having dragged him to a suitable spot close to the fire. The arms, thin and encased still within their soiled shirt and ragged black coat, fell unprotesting to the flagstones. Another alien flash of concern jolted through Norrell, mirrored in the way the river-light seemed to wash over Strange, touching his face and his chest as if checking he was still there in Hurtfew and not lost to the endless darkness. 

The fire, having been both unattended for some time and rained upon, was not as bright or warming as a gentleman might have wished; indeed only the lowliest and poorest of people would have been glad to have it in their grate. Norrell picked up one of the few remaining logs and threw it on; it spat and smouldered. He regarded it with displeasure as he rubbed his hands to rid them of any motes of bark-dust or lichen. 

Norrell sighed and gathered up one of the sets of blankets and then another and rather inexpertly draped them about Strange. However, like many scholars he had a very tidy mind, and seeing Strange’s lanky form sprawled on the flagstones like that didn’t please him, so he set about putting it to rights. 

He did not notice, but by the time he had folded and placed his cloak beneath Strange’s head, had tidied the blankets to his satisfaction and then sunk, exhausted into a nearby chair, the _Lumin_ spell had entirely faded. Once he had gathered up the last set of blankets and huddled himself inside, he had almost forgotten that he - the first and finest practical magician of the age - had ever cast a piece of magic as disreputable as that.

 

* * *

 

1: There are incidentally two tales that we may assume hold reference to the spell: one _The Baker’s Wife_ where a young woman uses the light to find her lost child, and the other _The Lay of The Corben Maid._ The latter is a poem detailing the abduction of a Tuxford girl into Faery after some magical covenant gone wrong: an unknown magician sought to relieve the girl’s muteness but blundered the magic. Instead of being completely cured she was cast half into Faery, and was only able to speak in the language of corvidae when she was in England. The maid in question seems to have been a natural magician herself, her lack of schooling could not fix her predicament but her genius enhanced it. The more desperate she became in her situation the brighter a remarkable light swirled about her, both in England and in Faery. (This did not produce a universally happy outcome: the parish curate thought he was witnessing the beautification of a saint and had a crisis of faith.) The faery lord who had claimed her thought her utterly magnificent and begged her to be his bride. That particular poem ends there, but there is a folk tale still told in Lincoln of the Crow Bride. She is a mute faery woman who always wears a mantle of crow feathers. It is said she watches over young brides and brides to be and may stand with them if their husbands prove over-harsh or false. It is said she remains still and unremarkable in the presence of true love, but in the presence of spite or false favour she shines quite luminously and makes her displeasure felt. Young lovers have been known to swear their fealty and steadfastness ‘by crow and star’. Many scholars assume this to be a garbled reference to the Raven King, but it is far more likely that it is a reference to the Crow Bride.


	3. The Hermit

The most disagreeable sensation of one’s face being torn off by the aether and a part of one’s soul with it hadn’t happened since the rain - that is to say, the third rain that had invaded Hurtfew’s library. Mr Norrell - a scholar - always a scholar at heart - had been much preoccupied with thinking upon his experiences since Strange had returned to Hurtfew and they had been forced into their battle with the Faery. 

Alas, a by-product of Mr Norrell’s brand of diligence is that it took him so long to mull things over. He had at the back of his mind realised that the curse ceased to wage its war upon them after the rain, but it had been so parcelled up in all the other distractions that he had not been able to give it the thought it was due. As it was, it never occurred to him that Strange’s affliction was anything other than the curse. Mr Norrell, whilst a practical magician, had lived his life so long in around and through books that the glut of magic he’d experienced in the past day rather stole his attention. His thoughts were for the _why_ and the _how_ and the _wherefore._

That is to say, that whilst he understood the third rain had been sent to wash off part of the curse, he did not understand how it had been wrought nor by whom. And it had not occurred to him (as it would have to Childermass or any of the Hurtfew servants) that whilst rain may wash away a curse, it would still drench a man, and that in turn - if he is drained of his usual vigour - it may cause him to take chill and fall to fever. In this we should not fault the older magician too harshly, for it must be said curses are far more uncommon and by their nature _interesting_ than fevers.

Mr Norrell was accustomed to awaking at six. He lay abed at his leisure until seven and then dressed. At eight he went to his study and his writing desk and attended to the correspondence that had come his way. At nine he took a turn about the gardens and allowed his thoughts to meander where they might (which was invariably some obscure piece of magic or lore from one of his books) and at ten he breakfasted. 

In the darkness it was very hard to tell what hour the world was blessed with, as all the clocks within Hurtfew obstinately held onto midnight. 

None the less, whether the clocks proclaimed it or no, Norrell awoke at six. He was not very happy to realise that he had slept in a chair, and his limbs were even less pleased than he. He scowled and stretched, tugging at his shirt-sleeves and waistcoat and wondering how he was to find fresh linens or neckcloths. He adjusted his wig, which had slipped over one ear, and what's more was by the feel of it in the most frightful state. It was as he tried to pat the horse-hair concoction back neatly upon his pate, that Norrell considered why he had been doing such an unlikely thing as sleeping in a chair in the library. He looked to the space on the flagstones beside the faint embers of the hearth: it was empty. The blankets were there, trailed damp and forlorn towards the door, but Jonathan Strange was not.

Norrell had regained much of his equanimity through sleep and was no longer as perturbed as he had been the night before. The fact that he didn’t even know for certain what hour of the day or night it was bothered him very little, as has been mentioned, Norrell kept to a strict schedule and so had quite a keen sense of time. None of this however, helped with the question of Jonathan Strange. 

Mr Norrell’s first instinct was to call for a servant and so he pulled upon the bellcord that hung to the right of the hearth. But as he tugged, he recalled a-new that the servants had left; he let go of the cord quite abruptly as if he feared something else might emerge from the darkness to answer his summons… He realised he was the one who would have to walk the empty rooms and hallways in search of the errant Strange. He felt a weight of responsibility fall upon him, heavier it seemed than any he had previously shouldered for the Admiralty.

He took a candle; it was quite purposeful on his behalf, he wished to show the world he was not afraid and had no need of foolishness like Atherton’s _Lumin._ Quite who he was showing other than himself he did not know, but that was enough. He left the library and began to walk the house, heading through his shattered labyrinth and up the abbey's carved oak stairs. He didn’t know what possessed him to look in the upper rooms first, but it was a fortuitous outcome. Strange was in the fourth bedroom, the one commonly called ‘the Ash Tree Room’. All the bedrooms were named after trees or noble plants - except for the last, which was rather oddly referred to as ‘the Other Room’. (1)

Norrell was not certain what the other magician was doing, but he appeared to be conversing with the empty air. His arms were held out by his sides, palms up, in a faint attitude of supplication; his right hand tremored. “Mr Strange?” He noticed for the first time that his former pupil was built like an afternoon shadow, tall and thin with an insubstantial air. He thought it very poor manners for Strange to wander about so, after he had taken the trouble to bring down the blankets - why, if Strange was about to put himself in a bedchamber then he need not have made the effort in the first place…

Strange was muttering to himself, the words barely a breath dragged past dry lips. He was not cognisant of what he did. Had one asked he would not even have known where he was at that moment, but he felt himself surrounded by darkness, misery and solitude. He’d dreamt of Arabella, dreamt of cold earth and colder trees - some of which wore her likeness - screaming his name and asking why, why - why he did not have matters in hand? _“Annel nathrak,”_ he told the trees desperately, _“oothez bethor - annel nathrak…”_ (2)

“Mr Strange!” Norrell said in alarm. “Stop this sir!”

“Tree speaks to stone… stone speaks to sky…”

“Sir!” Mr Norrell reprimanded him. This hollow muttering was most disconcerting. It put him in mind of the tales he’d heard of the corpses animated by unspeakable magic in a windmill in the Peninsula… Which in turn left a very cold and uncomfortable thought in its wake: what if Mr Strange had died but the curse prevented him from shuffling off his mortal coil as was proper? What if he remained as some mindless revenant, muttering spells and nonsense and flailing around Hurtfew like an under-stuffed scarecrow? Mr Norrell was a man of very scholarly habits, a sober disposition and an utter lack of fancy: his imagination was as small, tame and dry as he. That thought - of the un-dead scarecrow Strange - utterly terrified him. He grabbed his former pupil’s arm. “Mr Strange!”

“I must find Arabella!” That was as close to a shout as his hoarse throat could manage. “I must find - I - I…” His voice faded, sounding hurt and uncertain, as if he suspected the world of playing an unkind trick upon him.

Norrell sighed and closed his eyes, beginning to murmur under his breath.

“What are you doing?” Strange demanded suddenly with much of his usual keenness, turning toward the smaller man.

“Carlyle’s _End,”_ he said, “kindly do not interrupt.” (3)

For a moment Strange was angry that Norrell was attempting to cast such a charm upon him, but his features softened into exasperated amusement and a slight shake of his head. “There is no need, sir,” he rasped with a sardonic twitch of a smile, paler and altogether fainter than its usual cast. “No need,” he repeated, but with that his face blanched quite suddenly to bone, and he collapsed, ricocheting off the bed to mark his length upon the floor, his head very narrowly missing the edge of the brass fender that sat around the fireplace.

Norrell stopped the incantation and looked at him in some confusion, wondering for a moment if Carlyle had worked after all. But no, there was not the magical purple cord that the spell was supposed to summon, which meant Strange had landed upon the floor under his own power. Why on earth had he done that? “Mr Strange?” Norrell knelt down and gave him a shake. “You are on the floor, sir. You’d best get up.”

Mr Strange did not reply nor give any sign that he had heard; indeed he lay exactly as he had fallen, and was wax-pale and cold to the touch when Mr Norrell clasped his hand. The hand shook, but it was not that traitorous affliction left over from the war - all of Strange’s body appeared to be trembling.

“Jonathan?” the scholar asked in the smallest of voices. 

The vast silence of Hurtfew was not broken, merely ruffled moments later by Gilbert Norrell reciting Atherton’s _Lumin_ under his breath once more - although he was not entirely conscious of doing so. Much as a Catholic person might clasp at a rosary in their time of need, Norrell turned to magic. Even though the curse that fed upon their spirits was gone, the darkness remained. And without company, Norrell found it a very eerie place to be indeed.

Mr Norrell was not the best of nursemaids, as no one in creation who knew the man would ever have imagined him to be. He managed to drag Strange up from the floor and lay him upon the bed, and he was very impressed with his labour when it was completed. 

He sat on the end of the bed for some minutes after, the pale blue light of _Lumin_ washing over him and Strange both, coiling about them as if it were a multitude of cats seeking attention. He mopped at his brow with the sleeve of his coat and readjusted his now sadly disreputable wig. “Well sir,” he said, and it was impossible to tell if he addressed the unconscious form of his former pupil or the light that eddied around them both. “I had never thought before that it might be inconvenient to have such a large house. Who would ever think such a thing? And yet, I find myself most put out by a wealth of things that are not to hand. They are not to hand sir, indeed not!” It seemed by this point that Norrell was addressing the spell, for it flickered brighter in his agitation. 

“I do not know what is to be done. I have not had my breakfast and am beginning to feel the lack. Mr Strange has been most unhelpful in his manner…” The light flared; he gave it a sharp look and then dipped his head in contrition. “Well, yes, yes I suppose he cannot help that,” he allowed. A glance behind him at the dark and pale figure on the bed, but this seemed to distemper him further. “He could have at least brought up the blankets with him. Oh - he does not think!” The light shimmered and soothed. “I suppose there is nothing for it but to go and drag more linens off another bed…” The light seemed to encourage him, so that was what Norrell left to do. 

“I took some from Holly, Ash and Yew,” he recounted absently, looking at the rooms to his left. Oak was next in proximity, but this was Mr Norrell’s own room and he was not generous enough of spirit to give up his blankets so easily. Opposite was the Other Room, but (in a moment of superstition he would not admit to under the direst of interrogation) Mr Norrell passed it by and went instead to the Ivy Room, and wrestled the woollen blankets and crewel-work linens from there.

 

* * *

 

1: No one seemed to know why this was, and all of the Hurtfew staff were faintly embarrassed and defensive any time the matter was commented upon. It is quite possible that the first twelve rooms were named for the trees and plants (oak, ash, hawthorn, yew, birch, willow, hazel, briar, rowan, holly, laurel and ivy) which in mythological terms stand for England, and the ‘Other Room’ represented Faery.

2: It is left to debate - and there has been much - about what spell Strange was attempting with those phrases, or if in fact he was in the grip of a delirium. Shepperton in his _Deconstruction of the Modern Magician,_ has argued quite vehemently for the latter. Although other scholars (including John Segundus) have pointed out that ‘annel naSHrak’ is in Etain’s _Call to the Wyld_ (fragment) and so was a garbled beginning of that spell. It is of note also that Uthas Bethir is the famous name of the Faery Oak in several Cornish, Manx and Bretton folk tales. When these two facts are placed together, it becomes perfectly clear what Strange was attempting.

3: Carlyle’s _End and Hindrance_ is a spell meant to bind and subdue a thing, although it has long proved to be lacklustre on animals and no help at all upon people. (It has been mentioned that spells are often given very fanciful names that make them sound a good deal more exciting than they actually are. Carlyle on the other hand - a journeyman blacksmith from Sussex - believed in calling a spade a spade.)


	4. Death

Hurtfew’s clocks having quarrelled with the world, and with Mr Norrell’s impeccable sense of routine beginning to slip, it was hard to say what length of time Jonathan Strange was insensible for. It might have been forever: had Arabella been at his side she certainly would have thought it so. His gauntness and his black house-coat - two aspects which lent him much character in motion - gave him nothing but a funereal quality in repose. 

It was as if the loss of his wife, his incarceration and banishment to Venice, the strain of his experiments and his tribulations in Faery had all slowly built up stone upon stone upon stone - and sought to bury him. And even if there was no longer a curse draining his life, he might remain buried beneath all the weight of trial and loss just the same.

Norrell as has been mentioned, was not one of society’s most intuitive gentleman; he had always found books easier to read than people. (Books came with such conveniences as prologues, chapter headings and indexes, and were far more eager to explain themselves neatly than people ever were. They could also when proving bothersome, be shelved.) Had he been more insightful he might have tended Strange better. But he was not, so he tended Strange in his own rather haphazard way. 

Lighting a fire was of more difficulty to him them stripping further blankets off another bed and laying them over Strange when his shivering set to rattle his teeth. This time the blankets came from the Willow Room. It is interesting to note that whilst at first Norrell took linens from the closest bedchambers, after Strange’s wanderings he was very particular which rooms he took blankets, candles or any other small thing from. The rooms he favoured for blankets were the Ivy and Willow - ivy is traditionally used to crown triumphant magicians and willow’s bark is used to brew tea to still a headache or fever. The candles he took from the Yew Room and the Rowan Room: Yew promised to make weapons for the people of England and Rowan has always been a natural counter to magic - especially of the faery sort. He did not enter the Birch Room or The Other Room; the Birch trees promised the Raven King they would make doors to far away lands, and the significance of the Other room has already been raised. (1)

Mr Norrell also brought out the small crystal goblet and decanter of light tawny port that habitually sat on his dressing table in his room for those times he was fretful and needed a glass to induce a little drowsiness. (He was thoughtful enough to pour the first glass for Strange and offer it to his former pupil, but since Strange seemed in no state to take it Norrell was forced to drink it himself.)

Strange had a very hard time of it. He would twitch and his eyes would flicker open but he would not necessarily see. It seemed to him that for much of the time he was walking across a dark moor, the wind tugging at his coat as if it wished to possess it. He stumbled across the grassland, his feet catching on tussocks and slipping in mud. The moor was very vast and he could not find an end to it, nor a road nor even a tree that might give him some hope or a way to take his bearings. The sky was overcast and stuck in a forbidding twilight the colour of unpolished pewter. Faintly he could see the glimmer of far off stars beyond the bruise of the clouds, but their constellations were unknown to him. 

He couldn’t tell where he was and in his confusion he searched for Arabella. Searching - always searching, calling for her, uncertain how he had come to lose her - for what sort of husband manages to lose his own wife? In comparison to his youth, he had become a little more scholarly and distracted in his manner when concerning himself with magic; and it was also true that he might make notes upon any old thing - his shirt cuff once or twice. But really that was not the same in the least as misplacing one’s wife - he was not a total blockhead! 

Sometimes he found her and yet it seemed whenever he was about to catch the sleeve of her gown - “Bell, my love!” - there was always someone at his shoulder, harrying him. Mr Norrell was the culprit often, wringing his small hands and embarking on some dreary explanation of something-or-other he required Strange to attend to. It had been Colquhoun Grant several times too, wearing that disconcertingly still expression that had graced his face once or twice in the war and looked a little like alarm. Once it had even been Drawlight of all people - although Drawlight had had a small sapling growing up through his left eye socket and wildflowers spilling from his right thigh, which Strange found quite disconcerting. He never listened to what Norrell said; Grant had called some warning or other - “Merlin! You’re straying too far!” and Drawlight had simply said, “The winter wood is very cold,” in an odd voice quite planed of its usual fripperies. 

For every time and to each one he’d turned to remonstrate with them for keeping him from his wife. And every time they’d all vanished, and he’d been perplexed to find himself on a cold bed in a dark room he did not really know. (2)

He came a little more to himself even as he was lost a little more to the fever; the moor receded to be replaced more solidly by the room. It was a handsome bedchamber with a large window that no doubt afforded it an excellent view, but currently the sky was dark and the view obscured. There was a chest of draws and a little writing desk, a small mantelpiece above the hearth adorned with two silver candlesticks and a tinderbox. Neither of the candles were lit and nor was the hearth, but there was light none the less. It was faintly blue and uneven in its nature, like the dappled reflections that a body of water might give when the sunlight dances upon it. What was even more unlikely was that it was coalescing around a particular chair and a gentleman who dozed upon it.

He would have given more thought to the light and indeed the gentleman, but his own body gave a violent shudder, as if begging him to acknowledge it. He did not wish to; he hadn’t eaten in several days and his stomach was hollow. He couldn’t recall when he’d last drunk anything and his lips were cracked - his tongue felt shrivelled as if it would rather crawl back down his throat than lie as was proper in his mouth. His head felt unpleasantly hot, yet the rest of him was cold. His coat, shirt and britches all felt damp and chilled as if he had walked in the rain. Strange shivered and tried vainly to remember a spell for warmth. Did not Pevency have such a thing? Or was Pevency’s spell instead for _making_ rain? Or did it in fact cause unleavened bread to rise? He frowned and made a quiet noise close to a whimper. 

Mr Norrell would have been both distressed and slightly embarrassed to hear such a sound, but Norrell had drunk several measures of tawny port on an empty stomach and was sat in a chair by the unlit hearth, dreaming within his nest of blankets.

Was it Pevency? It seemed to him that if only he could remember the magic then everything would be well. The chill would leave his flesh and the pain would quit his head - Arabella would be there and all would be right with the world. What was the spell - _damn it!_ \- what was the spell? Strange fretted in his fever and in his sleep it seemed that Norrell’s magic knew, for the soft glow of _Lumin_ grew brighter and worried about Strange in turn, touching his face and the blankets that covered him, seeking to still his distress. (3)

Time turned, but all the clocks remained at midnight.

Jonathan Strange tried to move, but found his limbs didn’t very much care for the idea. He tried to tell himself, as some will in a stern manner, that this really was the end of enough and he ought get up. It didn’t work. He imagined Bell scolding him for his tardiness and telling him he ought not be abed; but when he failed to move she came to his side and said his name very sweetly, first with exasperation, then humour and lastly concern - brushing his hair away from his forehead with her fingertips and laying her palm against his cheek. 

“Bell,” he murmured with a weak smile. He was about to tell her he’d had the most harrowing dream of faeries and ravens and books and how the memory of it almost put him off ever thinking on magic again, when he forced his eyes to open and realised she was not there. 

After that for a long time he found he did not care very much what the world did, and certainly did not feel obliged that he need have any dealings with it. He’d had his fill of endless gloomy moors and cold darkened rooms: he did not care for this new existence he found himself in. It was very lonely and his mind throbbed and his heart ached until he felt sure that one or the other would burst. 

Had the Gentleman still been alive to know of it he should have laughed with pleasure, and likely cast about to see if he might make Strange even more miserable. (Although in this second endeavour he would very likely have failed.)

Strange did not try to chivvy himself back to the land of the living, nor mercifully did his mind bring anyone else forth to do it for him. That was until, quite unexpectedly, when he had reached a very comfortable and velvety sort of dark within himself - a place where he felt unlikely he was ever to be disturbed - he heard Lord Wellington’s voice. 

“Laurels make a very unsatisfactory adornment to one’s grave. You may be given ‘em, but are unable to see ‘em, sir.” His Grace sounded irritated, as he often had in the Peninsular when he felt his orders were not being correctly attended to. “This will not do. Be up and about your business, Merlin. Now, if you please!” (4)

He was so used to following the commands of the Duke (however inconvenient or impossible) that his heart, which had looked at that moment to set down its burden, wearily received its marching orders and took up its rhythm once again like a good soldier. Strange himself raked in a faltering and rather surprised breath and his eyes cracked very wide.

It felt to him as if a great many dark doors had opened or closed, and Strange had a notion that they had turned about - and that for a while he’d been on the wrong side of them. In particular on the wrong side of a very vast and black door that had only now opened again and roughly pushed him through before slamming itself shut. The effect was very singular, and very tiring. He had never, he was sure, felt so weak and exhausted in his life. But he was awake now, and the darkness had receded and he could not - no matter how he tried - find that peaceful velvety place within himself again. He made a sound at the back of his throat, a dry rasp - barely even a cough.

“Jonathan?” It was a very meek and uncertain naming of him but it was followed by a louder and closer, “Mr Strange, sir?” A hand was placed atop blankets and his breast and a face hove into view. “Are you there?” 

It seemed such a very odd question to come from his tutor’s mouth that Strange couldn’t help himself but give a twitch of his old smile. “Yes,” he said faintly. “I am here.” 

“Oh Mr Strange I had feared you had - had - you scared me sir!”

“Did I?” Strange mused vaguely. “I did not mean to.”

“Mr Strange… Mr Strange!”

But the magician’s eyes had closed and sleep had claimed him, soothing the myriad hurts that plagued his body. Sleep could not banish the black tower nor take the silver from his hair, nor return Arabella to his arms. But it could chase out the last of the fever that clung to his bones and return to him a modicum of his strength, and both it willingly did. 

The other endeavours, Jonathan Strange would have to achieve for himself. And as he was not a man to rest upon his laurels (or his ivy, as was traditional for magicians) one can be certain that he would apply every ounce of his brilliance to the task. 

 

* * *

 

1: Since all of the rooms in Hurtfew were built of stone with oak floor and panelling, and there is no record of them having had any physical or magical link to their namesakes, we can assume Mr Norrell’s magical knowledge of such things was so deeply imbued that it surpassed the practical and ended up in the purely metaphysical. That is to say, some hidden part of Mr Norrell’s memory recalled that Willow and Ivy, Yew and Rowan might have aided Mr Strange if called upon in the proper manner. But Mr Norrell’s waking mind was distracted by unease and a gnawing lack of books, and so instead he visited those rooms with a vague notion they might be of better service to him than the others. Etain’s _Call to the Wyld_ woven with Pale’s _Restoration_ \- using willow wands and ivy to form the key, and threads from Strange’s coat to bind it - would have been of great aid to Mr Strange and sped his recovery significantly. But such is the gift of hindsight. 

2: There has again been much curiosity and some controversy sparked around how many of Strange’s dreams - if any - were influenced by magic and how many the product of fever. Norrell denies casting such a spell and Strange claimed no memory of doing so. However it is interesting to note that whilst Norrell doesn’t remember dreaming anything, Grant remembers over two nights having nightmares that ‘filled him with dread’. It is even more singular that Strange - who knew nothing of it at the time - should have dreamt so accurately of Drawlight’s fate. 

3: Peterson’s _Apollo’s Blessing_ was likely what Strange was struggling to recall, and it would have served him very well - although the components of the spell would not have been readily to hand and in his state he would have found the execution of the charm nearly impossible.

4: Shepperton for his _Deconstruction_ went so far as to write to the Duke of Wellington, asking whether he had said or dreamt such a thing to Strange. His Grace reportedly found Shepperton ‘most disagreeable’, not least because he considered it quite impertinent to be asked such a question by anyone. If Shepperton ever received a signed reply, he neither used nor published it. However at the time, the Earl of Bath wrote to his fiancé, saying of the Duke, “He still remembers his magician with a rough and ready fondness it seems, and is put out some fellow has been hounding him on the matter. ‘When a thing ought be done, I do it. In the Peninsular I was always having to set Merlin about his business - as I did everyone else. I see no reason to cease now, sir.’ Apparently that line sent the fellow packing - and I can well believe it!” (5)

5: There are several persons who stand against Shepperton’s assertion that in that period Strange was incapable of performing magic. Although neither do they believe that Strange or Norrell were responsible. This third party is lead primarily by Miss Lindhurst who wrote an elegant thesis, _By Black Tower, Bird and Book,_ putting forth the idea that many - perhaps all - of the recorded peculiarities that happened to Strange and Norrell in their first season within the Tower of Darkness were in fact a direct result of the Raven King’s spell as he graciously unwound the most malicious elements of the curse from them.


End file.
